Is the bridge at a funny angle?

You forgot about Trip!
Archer had 4 perimeter stations (2 on each side of his chair) and 1 helm console.
https://www.cygnus-x1.net/links/lcars/blueprints/Starfleet-Bridge-Variations/Page_02.jpg
I hadn't really considered the table at the back of the room since it was used more as an information display for briefings than a control console, but perhaps I should reconsider!

Absolutely - I love the shots of continuous banks of screens as it really sells the "control centre" vibe. But I also can't ignore that sometimes wedge sections were conspicuously absent, so here we are...

I agree that the holodeck doors need not match or line up with actual doors present in a simulation - in fact I don't think this was ever done in TNG, at least not often.
So Scotty's (and maybe Picard's) route seems to have gone like this

But regardless of where Scotty enters the Bridge recreation, that portion of hand rail (and wedge, presumably) are most definitely absent on the left hand size of the image, as they were in many other episodes of TOS

And since we've gone this far it might as well be mentioned that the set recreation differs significantly in several areas from the original bridge:

The chunky separator that @David cgc mentioned is there on the right of the set and pop into shot every now and then:
https://tng.trekcore.com/hd/albums/season-6/6x04/relics-hd-210.jpg
The hand rail next to the engineering station has been rotated approx. 36 degrees (ha!) and now completely blocks off that console. It's also too short of course, but an additional mini-section has been added behind the captain's chair for no particular reason:
https://tng.trekcore.com/hd/albums/season-6/6x04/relics-hd-222.jpg
The steps leading down from the turbolift never existed on TOS and the platforms themselves are also wrong, but at this stage who's counting?

Perhaps we seeing the bridge through Scotty's drunken gaze and that's why the background details keep shifting from scene to scene

Something I will compliment the creators of Relics on is that as many times as the console section was reused for different background shots, they went to the trouble of swapping out the monitor images on the upper section. The main consoles are still the same of course, but I appreciated the broad strokes effort on what was a limited budget.

 

Oh, that's right, Trip sat in front of Malcolm at the forward-facing console on Archer's right. The console where we see Riker sitting during his "TATV..." holoprogram.

 

*Mumbles something about it being a TV show*

 

I love this thread.

It has:

1. Fun engineering analysis
2. Well-sourced posts with plenty of entertaining diagrams and schematics and pics
3. Some popcorn-grabbing board action
4. The usual argle bargle why are you analyzing this doesn't have to conform it can be anything and yet I simply must read and complain argle bargle crowd

Great work, all. A blast to read.

 

We aim to please.

35 degrees off-center.

 

NOT IF THEY KNOW WHAT'S GOOD FOR THEM.

 

They're angling for something completely different.

 

"I'm impressed. That's a lot of effort for a short [discussion]. "

 

Most of it I had kicking around my hard drive (or my head) already. I'd just never clocked that the famous clip used in Relics was one that featured the shortened hand rail by Spock's station, so I may have got a little over-excited

 

I forgot how poignant that scene is. Or maybe it's because I'm older now.

You are a terrible, terrible person.

I vote for this theory!

 

Don’t leave me this way.

 

Pic + Song Now Running Thru My Head = Priceless!

And...

I will survive.

 

I don't want to believe this works, but there actually is a small degree of justification for it in the FJSTM. I'm sure that someone will be able to post a picture of his floorplan of the bridge. In the service access behind the stations, there are two isolation doors that divide his secondary exit (shown above as thought it were a turbolift) from the gangway to deck 2. If the secondary exit were a walkway space leading to the gangway and not a turbolift, this makes sense for sound dampening, etc.

There is another isolation door opposite, near the assistant navigator station. This door would seem to serve no needed purpose. But if the assistant navigator station did "rectract" in some way as is shown in the image above, then that door would again provide sound dampening and visual separation between the gangway to deck 2 and the Bridge.

Throw in my idea of a Bridge on a rotating lift that lets it recess into deck 2 and you have something really interesting here, and something that would fit many people's theories all at once. I still don't know how the assistant navigator's station could somehow slip out of the way, though.

 

Another poster indicates that, in an orbit like this, the Enterprise would be orbiting with its bow about 45 degrees away from the planet, instead of pointing directly at it. This would help justify the bridge being on an angle, in that while in orbit, the Bridge would be facing more towards the planet's surface that out into space, if that was for some reason necessary or helpful

 

Not as bad as that see-saw thing from THE PRISONER.

 

While this is a more modern SF TV example, this BTS video explains the production realities of why a set doesn’t always fit into the model.

 

Very nice video. Dives right in, is continuously informative, insightful, and on point. At no point did I have to fight the urge to close the video (or succumb to it) because the speaker was just being enamored with the sound of his own voice.

 

I've never seen The Expanse, but why didn't they think it through and design a ship exterior that could plausibly contain some sets? Or even just design the sets so the big hatch was up in the ceiling? That would have covered their butts, too.

 

Great video, short enough whilst being incredibly informative!

He mentions that towards the end of the video - the production priority was in building filmable sets so they got finished first.
I would imagine that the people designing the exterior had their own set of priorities, such as making it look really cool and believable.

I've not seen the show either though, so I don't know how obvious the discrepancy is - from the comments on the vid it doesn't seem that bad